


Extraordinary

by delicatelyglitterywriter



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Autism, Autistic Lucy, Gen, I have Feelings about this okay, I just need to share these Feelings, Three Times Plus One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 06:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11053344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicatelyglitterywriter/pseuds/delicatelyglitterywriter
Summary: Three times Lucy was different, and one time it doesn't matter.Or: No one except Aslan can understand that Lucy is different.





	Extraordinary

**Author's Note:**

> It's been ages since I've read the books/seen the movies, so I wrote this based purely off what I remember bear with me please.

Noise. Lots of noise. It’s almost too noisy. 

Lucy squeezes and releases her lion repeatedly, focusing on the pressures like a heartbeat. It’s comforting to her. 

She pauses momentarily to pull her beanie a bit lower to try and muffle some of the noise. Then she squeezes again.

Lucy never liked train stations. They were too crowded and noisy and there were too many goodbyes. Lucy didn’t like goodbyes. It meant things had to change.

She didn’t like change.

“Just until it’s safe for you to come back,” her mother assures her, putting her hands gently on Lucy’s arms. Lucy doesn’t like the touch right now. She wants something hard. 

So she throws her arms around her mother and squeezes quite tight. Her mother hugs her back just as tight, and Lucy manages to smile just a little bit. She likes the pressure. She squeezes her eyes shut and counts to seventeen (her favourite number) quietly in her head and blocks out everything else.

When she’s done counting, everything feels a bit better. Not fully better, but enough to cope. She lets go and watches as her mother steps back to let her, Edmund, Susan and Peter get on the train. 

She’s the first one to the window after the horn sounds. She presses herself up against the side, sticking her arm out to wave to her mother. Edmund is pushing against her. The compression comforts her.

Then she hears it. 

“Stop squashing me!”

It’s Edmund. He sounds cross. Lucy frowns. 

“Squishing bad?” Lucy asks slowly. She’s having trouble with words right now.

“It hurts and I’m not a sardine!” Edmund snaps. 

“Come on,” Susan pries Peter away from the window so that Edmund can breathe again. Lucy immediately misses being squished. But she doesn’t say anything.

Apparently it’s odd to like being squashed.

 

* * *

 

“Lucy, we’ve talked about this. It’s polite to look at people when talking to them.”

She’s heard it a million times before. Usually, it’s Susan scolding her for not making eye contact during conversation. But Lucy can’t help it. Eye contact hurts her eyes. It’s too intense. 

She’s tried explaining this to Susan, but Susan doesn’t understand. Susan thinks she’s just shy and that she can overcome it.

Sometimes, though, Lucy believes her. Sometimes, she tries different methods to try to overcome her shyness. But it doesn’t work, and Lucy gets frustrated. Then she retreats into herself and pretends nothing else exists. And then she remembers that she’s just different. And then she pretends like no one notices and no one cares and then it’s find for a while.

And then the cycle repeats itself. 

She’s tired of it. Tired of not being able to look people in the eye like others can. For this reason, she often chooses not to participate in conversations. That is, until Susan or Peter makes her.

Susan. 

She wonders if Susan is okay. She knew Susan was the most skilled archer since ever, but Lucy is still worried about her. Susan is, after all, her only sister. 

It’s right after this thought that she’s flung right off her horse. She lands on the hard ground with an “oof”. When she sits up, she sees Aslan, scaring the Telmarine soldier away. 

Lucy smiles. She always smiles when she’s near Aslan. He makes her feel all warm inside, like a hot chocolate on a chilly winter day.

“Aslan!” she greets happily as he turns around. She runs to him and hugs him really tight. Then she steps back. “You’re bigger!”

“That is because you are a older, little one.”

“Not because you are?”

“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

Lucy giggles. She always giggles when she’s very happy. She also sometimes shakes her hands. But she doesn’t right now, because her hands are too busy petting Aslan. She doesn’t know how long she’s there, but she suddenly catches herself staring into Aslan’s eyes.

She blinks in surprise when she finds that her eyes aren’t hurting from the eye contact.

“M-My eyes aren’t hurting!” she says. “That’s never happened before.”

She looks deeply into his eyes some more. “Your eyes are soft. That’s why my eyes aren’t hurting.”

“Other’s eyes are often very hard, aren’t they?” 

Lucy nods, giggling again. Aslan is the first one who’s ever understood. Others don’t get that some intangible things feel hard, and other intangible things feel soft. Aslan understanding this makes her feel like she wants to scream with joy. But she knows she shouldn’t do that because there could be other Telmarines around. So she settles for giggling and petting Aslan.

 

* * *

 

“No, Aslan, please don’t make me go.”

She’s holding Aslan as close as she can and has her face buried in his mane. She’s crying. She doesn’t want to go. 

Aslan soothes her quietly. He’s not saying any words, but somehow it makes sense in her head. 

“No,” she chokes out in between her tears. “No change.”

She doesn’t see the tear that rolls down his cheek. But she does hear his comforting sounds. He’s saying that it’s going to be okay, and that it won’t be that much of a change; that he will always be with her and that she can find him in Her World. 

“Narnia my world,” she stutters out. She’s having trouble with words again. She always does when she’s upset.

“You’ve served your purpose in Narnia,” Aslan says softly. “That’s why I brought you here. I am sending you back to the Other World because you have another purpose to serve over there.”

Lucy pulls back, swiping at her eyes. She looks into his eyes again. They’re still soft. And they’re full of the sound of rain falling - her favourite sound. Of course his eyes aren’t actually making noise, but they sound like they do to Lucy, because they give her the same happy feeling she gets when there’s heavy rain outside. 

She can’t help but smile a little. It’s not a big smile, just a little one. But a little one is all she needs right now.

Lucy turns and walks towards the exit, knowing that if she doesn’t go now, she never will.

 

* * *

The last thing Lucy remembers is a horrible screeching sound, so loud that she had to cover her ears.

 

She opens her eyes and she’s surrounded by grass and sunlight and she’s dressed in different clothes to what she was wearing on the train. She looks around. There are trees, and a rippling brook a few meters off, and there with her are Peter, and Edmund, and Professor Kirke, and Miss Polly, and Jill and Eustace. 

“What happened?” Jill asks, clearly as confused as Lucy is.

“Well, I do believe that the train crashed,” Peter says. “And since we’re not in the wreckage, I can only assume we, well, died, and are in Heaven.”

“I must say,” Edmund says, tilting her head. “This is not what I expected Heaven to be like. I was expecting it to be much brighter. And perhaps even be greeted by Jesus.”

Professor Kirke and Miss Polly chuckle.

“And what are you laughing about?” Eustace asks, putting his hands on his hips. He’s always had a bit of a hard time not getting cranky, even after visiting Narnia. But surely if this is Heaven, Lucy reasons, he shouldn’t be feeling cranky at all!

“Eustace, I don’t think this is Heaven,” Professor Kirke says, glancing towards a tree. Lucy follows his gaze, and sees a faun standing there, watching the group. 

“Why, I do believe it’s Narnia!” Lucy shouts happily. “Look!”

She points to the faun, who makes their way over to them. As he gets closer, Lucy recognises him as Mr Tumnus.

“Mr Tumnus!” she exclaims. “But what are you doing here?”

“My dear Lucy!” he greets with a grin. “I have been here since I died! This is the afterlife many believe in.”

“By jove, are you saying that this is indeed Heaven?” Petter questions.

“No, no, King Peter!” Mr Tumnus says. “This is Narnia! This is the Real Narnia!” 

Everyone stares at him, perplexed. “Oh, bother, I’m afraid explaining isn’t going very well. Come, I’ll just show you.”

He leads them over to the door, where they watch as the Shadowlands are destroyed. After this, Lucy almost tackles Aslan to the grass with a hug. Aslan laughs.

“Hello, little one! Welcome back!”

Lucy giggles. She’s so happy she can’t get any words out; she can only giggle. She pulls back and bounces up and down and shakes her hands as fast as she can. 

When she does this, one of her older siblings usually intervenes and tells her to stop being so silly and to act like a lady. But no one does this time. Not that she would care if they did. 

She’s feeling more happy than she’s ever felt, and she needs to giggle, and jump, and flap her hands, otherwise she thinks she might explode. But then she stops for a moment when she remembers Aslan in front of her. What if he doesn’t want her to be silly and loud?

She bites her lip and looks at her shoes, her excitement evaporating. 

“What’s the matter, Lucy?”

“Nobody really likes it when I get giggly and bouncy and shake my hands,” Lucy says simply.

“Oh, dear one,” Aslan says with a slight sigh. “Do you remember the first time you found Narnia? You found it because you were extraordinary; only extraordinary people find Narnia. Part of your extraordinariness is to giggle and jump around and flap your hands when you’re happy. Be extraordinary here. It’s what keeps you continuously connected.”

Lucy smiles and buries her face in Aslan’s mane. No one ever let her be obviously different. And then she realises: she is in Heaven. For her, Narnia is Heaven. 

And Heaven, Lucy thinks, is extraordinary. Just like her.


End file.
